In my previous post “What is a garden for?” I suggested that a garden helps us live our lives outside of ourselves, physically and mentally. You can find that post here.
My second idea is simple. My garden is for looking out onto like watching a slowly changing painting, changing during the day with movement and weather and also changing over the weeks, months and seasons.
Here is my view of the back garden from inside the kitchen, taken on a sunny day this week and then today with the rain.
My view from inside on a sunny day
The view today in the rain
The back garden is a rectangle as wide as the house, that’s about 7 metres and about 13 metres from the window to the back fence covered in ivy. It really is a room outside and I can see every inch of it all at once all the year around. It’s like a stage set I suppose and there are no hidden corners.
So I look out on this and can spend ages just watching the birds feeding, creatures scurrying about or the changes in the weather. It’s very peaceful and makes a change from staring at my phone a few inches from my nose.
View from the kitchen sink
This view from the kitchen sink couldn’t be lovelier. Currently there’s apple blossom confetti on the ground falling like very gentle snow. Andrew O’Brien has written a lovely short post about blossom confetti in his daily blogpost which you can find on Day 127 at his website here. His daily topic is always lovely to receive.
So when it’s too cold or wet to get outside it helps to have a lovely view right outside your window and if you have a big garden you can just ignore the bits you don’t want to see.
Lastly, the view today from the open back door.
Maybe you want to think about what your garden is for and make plans to get it to the best it can be.
Till next time…….
Beautiful! What a lovely place to call home.
Thankyou Beverly, yes I know I am very fortunate. I hope you are too with your garden space.
I am guaranteed to love every part of your garden, and now that extends to inside your house! Love your yellow windows! It is so important to have good views from the windows. You frame yours beautifully. A garden is for pleasure and indulgence, rest and recuperation, delight and wonder.
Thankyou so much Ali! Yes our whole house is painted in “Moroccan Sands” Dulux paint, every wall and ceiling so the whole house shines golden yellow. with terracotta colours and a mid-blue everything is very warm and cheerful. Yes a garden is for all those things, certainly not for hard work and guilt. Best wishes to you.
Lovely post and lovely garden.
Oh thankyou Barbara, it is always lovely to find people are actually reading my efforts. Best wishes to you.
Lovely post and pictures. xx
Thankyou Mike. I am finding that short blogs are working well. They still take ages to do but I think people like them. Best wishes to you.
Hi Julie, I have been reading your blog for a few months now and really enjoy it. Your garden is beautiful and an inspiration for those of us with small gardens. I especially like your thoughts on what a garden is for as they are so akin to how I feel about my small piece of joy. I live in surburban Dublin, Ireland, with a garden about the same size as yours, have enjoyed gardening for many years but only really got going since retiring ten years ago. Don’t blog myself but thanks so much for yours, it’s a pleasure to read.
Hi Joan, how lovely of you to write. Your comment has made me very happy and helped me to feel that this blogging hobby is really worthwhile. I’m interested to hear you feel the same about what gardens are for and that you have a small garden like me. I see you’re in Dublin – have you been to Helen Dillon’s garden at all? I’ve only seen in on the TV. She looks a formidable lady.
I put a lot of garden photos on Instagram and wonder if you are on that too with photos of your garden. Anyway, I shall have you in my mind when I am writing my blogs and thanks again for taking the trouble to write. best wishes, Julie
Hi Julie, thanks so much for replying, I really appreciate it. I’m not on Instagram. I was in an online club on garden.ie, an Irish website, but it’s offline now while they upgrade the site. It’s taking so long that we’re losing hope of it ever coming back. Meanwhile I’m in a group called Garden.ie Friends on Facebook which anyone can ask to join.
Helen Dillon certainly is a formidable lady and I visited her former well known garden several times. She moved home a couple of years ago and has been creating a new, albeit smaller, garden from scratch. Nothing like a new challenge when you’re in your 70’s. It’s near where I live and I’m hoping to organise a group to visit this summer. Next year I hope to visit some English gardens; East Lambrook Manor will be top of my list. Best wishes, Joan
Hi Joan, wow you are lucky to have visited Helen’s old garden . Her new one has been on TV when she first moved there and I’m sure she’s going to make it quite fabulous. What an inspiration she is! So glad to hear ELManor is top of your list. It’s a lovely lovely place. I wrote a blog about it a while ago. Very best wishes, Julie
Hello Julie
I have just subscribed to your blog. Your garden is lovely and I completely concur: looking out at my garden is something I can do all day long. Our garden is about half the size of yours – 9 x 4m with a little less to the front. It is just in its second year. I cleared a sad ‘lawn’ two summers ago and had a path and two small patios laid. When my little hawthorn hedge fills out, it will divide the back garden in two: to the rear of the hedge there is a little ‘woodland’ with a small pond on one side and the mini patio where my wooden bench sits under a mature weeping pear tree. In front of the ‘hedge’ are two square borders with cottage garden plantings – foxgloves as tall as me and a rosa desdemona are just coming into bloom. Soon the path will turn red as the creeping thyme which has already almost totally colonised the gaps in the broken paving will be in flower. Climbers are slowly covering the trellises and walls bring welcome enclosure from the all-round neighbouring houses of what is a modern innercity estate. We are lucky that a nearby park to the north side gives us a delightful borrowed landscape of mature ash and other trees. I love flowers but trees are my true delight and I have planted ridiculous numbers back and front. I am espaliering two apple trees in the back garden and have a morelo cherry and a crab apple in the front among others. I am also growing a wild crab apple hedge in the front garden. I planted the whips a couple of months ago and they are growing like mad already.
I know I sound like a mother cooing over her newborn but, honestly, I am that excited to see my garden grow. Given that my youngest is going to give birth to my seventh grandchild any day now, my mind should be on other things, no? Ah well!
By the way, I also love your sense of colour and your post about where your creative inspirations come from. And your idea about a brightly coloured table umbrella I think I am going to pinch. Thank you for inspiring me, Ingrid
Ingrid thank you so much for your cheerful and encouraging message. Definitely pinch the colourful umbrella/chair/table idea, it is so easy to inject colour that way. You too have a borrowed landscape – aren’t we lucky. We have Highgate woods at the back with huge huge trees. Best of luck with your garden and your grandchildren and thankyou again for your comment. Best wishes, Julie
Yes, window gazing is a great occupation when you have a pretty garden Julie, and I am so pleased to read you are enjoying yours
Thanks Cathy, and on a day like today I guess we are out watering our pots and enjoying the sun. Best wishes, Julie